Our View: No workplace balance

No workplace balance What if unions and collective bargaining rights were just to go away? If it was every worker for him- or herself, would it matter to wages, to other benefits such as health care and paid vacations and 40-hour work weeks, to retirement security?

Journal Star

Writer

Posted Dec. 16, 2012 at 12:01 AM
Updated Dec 16, 2012 at 3:05 PM

Posted Dec. 16, 2012 at 12:01 AM
Updated Dec 16, 2012 at 3:05 PM

PEORIA

What if unions and collective bargaining rights were just to go away? If it was every worker for him- or herself, would it matter to wages, to other benefits such as health care and paid vacations and 40-hour work weeks, to retirement security?

Action by Michigan's Legislature begs the question, as the state that has long served as ground zero for the American labor movement last week became the 24th nationally - Illinois is not among them - to declare itself "right to work," meaning workers there cannot be compelled to join a union or pay dues as a condition of employment.

On the one hand, in the labor vs. liberty debate, it's tempting to favor the latter in a nation that has long cherished the principle of choice. On the other, is it a coincidence that as union membership has shrunk - to less than 12 percent nationally - so have middle class wages and benefits?

To be sure, the labor movement has sometimes overstepped, been unreasonable in its demands and uncompromising to the point of self-defeating. Particularly in the public sector, that has taken its toll on taxpayers. But if Americans no longer trust unions, do they trust management to behave in ways that serve their best interests? The latter is guilty of its excesses, too.

It's not uncommon to read of companies squeezing their hourly workers while paying a single CEO tens of millions of dollars, sometimes independent of performance. Recently a federal bankruptcy judge approved sizeable bonuses for Hostess Brands management that is putting thousands of people out of work who had asked for a fraction of what they make. Meanwhile, last week megabank HSBC agreed to pay a sizeable fine - if a tiny part of its overall revenues - to satisfy the U.S. Justice Department, which had accused its leaders, according to the New York Times, of "transferring money for nations like Iran and enabling Mexican drug cartels to move money illegally." Too big to fail, too big to jail?

If you want to know why there is class resentment in this country, arguably this is why, and it doesn't take a politician to stir it up. Would the end of unions as a check and balance matter? Believe your eyes.